Night Terrors

Kaitlyn woke in the dark. In that first moment she panicked, for she could hardly move, but then she realized that she had somehow squeezed herself underneath her parents’ bed. She had no idea how she’d gotten there.

She twitched and squirmed to work her way out from the confining space, and in her movement her fingers found a cylindrical object. Intrigued and confused, she fumbled with the object until she found a switch and the underside of the bed lit up like the crack of dawn. A flashlight, she thought to herself. What’s this doing under here? What am I doing under here?

She had almost worked her way out from under the bed when something out of the ordinary caught her eye. The floor didn’t look right. The patch of hardwood that she was wiggling toward was the wrong color. It almost looked like…

Kaitlyn bit her lip and tried not to cry out, but she couldn’t help the little squeak that escaped her lips.

That looks like blood.

She changed directions and squirmed toward the end of the bed rather than the side, and when she finally escaped she had to force herself to look around the room.

The floor on her mother’s side of the bed was painted with red, and the bedsheets on both sides looked as though they’d been soaked in it.

Kaitlyn backed away from the bed, a scream barely held back by the hand she’d raised to her mouth. It wasn’t until she banged into the dresser behind her that she realized there was something sticking out of her back pocket. She felt it pressing into her back – the edged blade slick with sticky red – but she couldn’t look at it, wouldn’t look at it.

Kaitlyn sunk to the floor, switched off the flashlight, and lay down in the dark.